


Tumbled for each other

by Teary_smiles



Category: Ghostbusters (2016), holtzbert
Genre: Erin is a new and fresh gay, F/F, Fluff, Jillian is an expert gay, Tumblr, You Have Been Warned, excessive puns, if you can just make it through the puns you will be fine, its great i promise, they are amongst us, they are on tumblr and they see it all
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-24
Updated: 2016-07-24
Packaged: 2018-07-26 10:36:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,908
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7570879
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Teary_smiles/pseuds/Teary_smiles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Erin makes a Tumblr account, and gets into the messy business of shipping Holtzbert. Its supposed to be just for fun, but what happens when she starts to really fall for her coworker? They fall for each other, or rather, they tumble.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tumbled for each other

**Author's Note:**

> Im sorry y'all there are puns. Many, many, bad, very bad puns. You have been warned

One day the team was out somewhere in the city hunting a ghost, and someone spotted them and took a picture saying “Tumblr is gonna love this”. Erin quickly forgot about it, but one day when work was slow and everyone was doing their own thing, Erin figured she had some time, so she might as well check it out. She went to sit in a corner with her laptop and signed up for a Tumblr account.

Once she had gone through the tedious process of creating her account, with the perfect username, and had perfectly summed up her interests into 5 topics from the Tumblr suggestion list, she typed #ghostbusters into the search bar, and there was a whole page full of posts. She scrolled a bit more and realised there were thousands of people in the ghostbusters fandom, which she didn’t even know existed until just now.

Not having anything else to do, she started following the suggested blogs and read through all the text posts, gifs, videos, and pictures one by one. When she saw the first “#i’m gay for Jillian Holtzmann”, Erin felt a pang of jealousy, but dismissed it as irrational. She reblogged and liked the post anyway, and continued scrolling. A few posts later she encountered post one asking Holtzmann to marry them. Erin rolled her eyes and scrolled on.

After about five of these ‘totally in love with Holtzmann’ posts she wondered what was going on and realised that one of the blogs she followed was called Jillian-Holtzmann-fan-17. Erin was shocked at the though that not only would the url Jillian-Holtzmann-fan be taken, but that all the numbers up to 17 would also be taken she almost couldn’t believe. After a bit of research it became clear that a large majority of their fanbase was dedicated to Jillian Holtzmann, and that there were hundreds of blogs dedicated to her. Erin wasn’t quite grasping how many people’s lives the ghostbusters had touched, and quite how many fans they really had.

Erin was unsure what she was supposed to be feeling, or what she was feeling in actuality, but whatever it was, it was very confusing, and it was too much. She slammed her laptop shut, and headed back to where other people were. She decided to keep this to herself for now.

When Erin walked into the common area of the firehouse Abby and Patty were out, presumably for coffee, and Holtzmann was at her work station as usual. She had her goggles on, music blaring, and was dancing as best she could while welding. She looked up for a second and saw Erin, and though Holtzmann couldn’t quite pin down what emotion it was Erin was feeling, she got the feeling it wasn't a good one. 

Holtzmann put down her welding tools, and pulled her goggles onto her forehead. Maintaining true to her spontaneous self, she walked right up to Erin with no idea what she would say until she was actually standing right in front of her.

“Hey,” said the engineer. “How’s it going-” Holtzmann pointed her welding tool up and turned it on- “hot stuff?”  
Erin couldn’t help the giggle that escaped her throat, and the snort that followed. Impulsively, she covered her mouth, almost horrified by the sound she had let out, but Holtzmann only smiled and looked a little smug or proud that she got Erin to really laugh. Erin should know by now that there was no judgement within their crew, but Erin was still not used to it.

When Abby and Patty came back with coffees and sandwiches, Erin and Jillian were sitting on the couch together with almost no space in between them. Abby and Patty exchanged a look before reluctantly interrupting their moment. Erin and Jillian were talking throughout lunch and well into the afternoon. Erin listened as Holtzmann explained her new gadgets and the physics behind them, joking just about as much as doing anything useful. Erin was mesmerised by the passion Holtzmann had for her tools, who was in turn ecstatic to get to make so many jokes in one day, and to be able to talk to someone who took such great interest in her work.

\- - -

It took another 3 days until Erin really let herself think about what she’d seen on Tumblr, and another 5 days until she had the thought to look at it again. When she did, she was lying on her side in bed unable to sleep, at almost 11pm (1½ hours after she usually went to sleep). She downloaded the Tumblr app, and logged in on mobile.

In the past 5 days their fandom had grown exponentially. Considering how large their fandom had been just a week after saving New York, and Erin knowing full well the effect Holtzmann had on women, the size of the ghostbusters fandom was fully what she had been expecting. What she wasn’t expecting however, was for there to be a Holtzbert fandom. There were pictures, fanfics, videos and everything imaginable; from 90s playlists to a posts from a person who had gone in search of ghosts in the hopes of calling the ghostbusters and seeing “The Jillian Holtzmann” for themselves, but said that when she got there they didn’t even get a wink, and that Holtzmann was flirting with the Dr. Gilbert the whole time.

An insuppressible blush crept up Erin’s cheeks as she thought about it. She still remembered the case. It was a mere class II ghost, but she remembered it because Jillian had told her that her eyes reminded her of the stars. Somebody had taken a picture of them in that moment, and put little hearts over their eyes.

Erin was a little shocked to find that the post had so many notes. Almost 600 people had reblogged or liked this, ‘shipping’ the two of them together. Erin felt like she wasn’t supposed to be seeing this, like it was secret, or private.  
Erin ignored the feeling, and decided to join the fandom anyways. In her mind she justified this as research, or keeping up with their media representation and image, or checking out a new marketing possibility or some other excuse that was scientific/professional, but that justification wouldn’t be honest. Deep down she knew that she just liked fantasising about being held in Holtzmann’s toned arms, or going out together. She didn’t expect it to go anywhere; Holtzmann flirted with everyone and Erin was no exception, but she figured there would be no harm in pretending online with some other people that it was special.

Erin chose a nice selfie of her and Jillian for her icon, and chose her title: “Holtzbert shipper trash”. She got her first follower that night, and was motivated to continue. She posted and reblogged into the early morning hours, and ended up only getting 5 hours of sleep.

\- - -

Weeks passed and Erin’s blog ‘eringilbert-has-a-crush-on-jillianholtzmann’ (one of the few urls with similar meaning left) became more and more renowned. Soon she passed the 1000 followers milestone, and she had became known in the fandom as one of the people who was great at coming up with headcannons that fit each of the ghostbusters perfectly, and who often knew a little more than the fandom did, and a little sooner.

Tumblr became more and more a part of Erin’s daily routine, and though it wasn’t explicitly a secret from the rest of the team, she always spoke elusively when referring to something from Tumblr, and she never addressed shipping herself with one of her colleagues. Somehow she managed to keep the whole thing completely separate from reality. Erin could be reading fluffy pregnancy fics about her and Jillian, and 2 minutes later she would have lunch with Jillian like nothing ever happened.

The more famous Erin became on Tumblr and the more followers she got, the more anon haters she got. Erin kept anon turned on because she found it quite amusing when she got messages like “You don’t even know Erin Gilbert at all, your headcannons are so awful you probably don’t even know which one of the ghostbusters she is” or “Do you even have eyes? Are you capable of seeing? Because if you did you would know that Erin Gilbert definitely does not have a crush on Holtzmann. She’s gross and Erin can do way better. She was totally in love with Kevin and anyone who says otherwise is wrong”. The best one yet was “Have you ever considered that Erin Gilbert is a real person, and that you ‘shipping’ her with some lesbian is totally gross and inappropriate. How do you think she would feel if she knew the disgusting things you are doing?”. Erin would always respond in a very sarcastic tone with an appropriate ghostbuster/ghost related gif.

She also began to get close to some other bloggers. When she found a post she particularly liked she would send it to some other blogs, and they had a group chat, so Erin felt confident in calling them friends. One of her closest ‘friends’ on Tumblr was jillianholtzmann-is-gay-for-eringilbert, another fandom celebrity, famous for her great metas and theories which always lined up with Erin’s ‘headcannons’. Some even credited jillianholtzmann-is-gay-for-eringilbert with having started the Holtzbert fandom, so they were usually up to speed with Erin, which led to many great conversations together about ghostbusting, and they were really easy to talk to, except for the one too many puns in every conversation.

\- - -

One afternoon at the fire station, everything was calm and peaceful, or as peaceful as it could be at the home of the ghostbusters. Holtzmann was blaring some of her 90s music, while being completely absorbed by something on her computer, and Abby was studying with Patty (who was close to getting her PhD in history, and had finals coming up next month) over a take-out box of Chinese food and soup. Erin was on a couch on Tumblr on her phone.

She was tagged by jillianholtzmann-is-gay-for-eringilbert for a get to know meme. There were three questions, one about their OTP, one about their dream job, and the last one about the last song they rocked out to. Jillianholtzmann-is-gay-for-eringilbert answered 1) Holtzbert (duh), 2) Ghostbuster/Engineer (duh), and 3) You Spin Me Round (Like a Record) by Dead or Alive.

Some music turned on, and Erin looked up to see Holtzy dancing like a giant goofball. She was doing pirouettes just as the chorus came around “You spin me right round, baby right round, like a record baby, right round, round round”. Jillian gave her a wink and Erin’s mouth hung open completely confused. How could Jillian be rocking out to the same song as jillianholtzmann-is-gay-for-eringilbert?

Jillian did a mime lasso, pulling the brunette onto the designated dance floor part of the fire station (equipped with a light up dance floor and disco ball, curtesy of their engineer (of course Holtzmann needed a dance floor to rock out to all her 90s playlists) the second day after they had moved in). Erin dismissed it as a coincidence, put down her phone, and reluctantly joined in the dancing. They danced together, with Jillian in the lead. She took most of her cues from the music, spinning her partner when the words said round round, and pulling her closer when the words said so.

When the song changed, to Hungry Like The Wolf by Duran Duran, the dancing duo pulled the rest of their team with them onto the dance floor. Abby and Patty could use a break from reading, and Kevin, not having much else to do, was eager to join in as well. They jammed out for the entire duration of the song. When the song ended, Holtzmann took the opportunity to make a hungry joke, and got Kevin to order pizza. Holtzmann ordered hers with extra chilli peppers, “So I can have something hotter than Erin today” she said, and Erin choked on the soda she was drinking.

When the pizzas arrived, Jillian went to eat at her work station, and Erin ate with Abby. Abby was telling her something about a book, except across the room Jillian was doing some heavy lifting in a tank top, so Erin wasn’t hearing much. Abby snapped her fingers right in Erin’s face “Earth to Erin. Hello?”  
“Yeah, I was listening, book, publish, sequel… got it.” Erin said, reluctantly looking away from the sweat-glistening engineer, and back at Abby, who was grinning just like she did in 9th grade when Erin had been so mesmerised by Max Zarsiky that she walked straight into him in the lunchroom.

Abby didn’t have to say anything for her smug face to convey what Erin already knew. She cursed herself for letting it get to this. She had promised herself that she was shipping and posting just for fun, and that it didn’t mean anything. The most important thing she had told herself was to not let it overflow into real life, and now she was sitting in front of Jillian, unable to stop staring and being completely infatuated.

After lunch it was Erin’s turn to help Patty study. Patty was a quick study with a photographic memory, but Patty had a lot to catch up on with how much time she spent ghostbusting instead of studying, so they still spent the whole afternoon studying. Once it got dark out, they decided to call it a night. They went to check up on Holtzmann, who was still standing in the same position as three hours ago, in front of a blackboard with some unsolved equations.

“Jilly, you haven't moved a muscle in the past three hours.” Erin said, too tired to conceal the pure concern and love in her voice. “Get some sleep, maybe it will come to you in a dream.” Holtzmann’s arms shot up in excitement and she punched the air. She turned around for a second to thank Erin, before turning back to her board muttering something about three, and writing furiously.  
“Okay then, you can keep working, but don't forget to go to sleep.” Erin replied turning to walk towards the stairs with Patty to go to sleep.

\- - - 

The next morning Erin woke first, so she went downstairs to make some breakfast, and found Jillian asleep at her desk on top of some blueprints. Erin gently placed a blanket around Jillian’s shoulders, and tiptoed to the kitchen to make coffee. 

Abby awoke next, and as she came down the stairs, Erin warned her to make sure Holtzmann didn’t wake up. She handed Abby a cup of coffee, and they both sipped in silence. When Patty came down, they both gave her the same warning, and also handed her a cup. Erin and Abby ate cream cheese bagels, and Patty studied some more. Work officially started at 9:30 so that’s when Kevin usually said goodbye to his goldfish and left his apartment. At about 10 o’clock Kevin walked in, and Erin stood ready right at the door. 

“You have to be really quiet, Holtzmann is still sleeping” Erin whispered. Kevin nodded, and accepted the cup of orange juice he was given. He walked over to the counter, took a sip of his glass, and put it right down on a remote with a big red button that said “DO NOT PUSH”.

Once it was pressed alarms started blaring, and safety lights started flashing. Holtzmann didn’t even use safety lights for a nuclear reactor, so whatever could be deadly enough to warrant a safety light scared the living hell out of the whole team. 

“Aww hell no,” Patty yelled. “I ain’t dying today” Patty grabbed the nearest thing she could, Kevin’s glass of orange juice, and dunked it on Holtzmann’s face. “Wake up Holtzy! Turn off the death machine!”

Holtzmann shot right up in her seat, wiped off her eyes, and jumped on her feet. She ran straight to the large machine behind her and frantically typed on the computer plugged into it. Holtzmann turned around to look at the team “What are you talking about? The death machine hasn’t been turned on.”  
“Yes it has!” Abby yelled over the ringing sound  
“I accidentally pushed the big red button that says ‘don’t push’ on it in big letters.” said Kevin  
“No the death machine is this thing here,” Holtzmann said, pointing behind her with two finger guns, “That button there is just my alarm clock”. She flicked off the switch on the back and all the alarms turned off  
The whole team sighed in relief, too scared to laugh at the ridiculousness that was Jillian’s alarm clock. Jillian went upstairs to shower off the OJ, and the rest of the ghostbusters sat down and recovered from a near death experience.

The day started hectically, and continued in the same manner. At 11 they got a call of a class IV spectre. Holtzmann had ecto-1 pulled up by the time that Abby, Patty, and Erin had their suits on and had gone down the fireman’s pole. They busted the ghost without any major difficulties, and when they got back to the fire station they already had another case waiting for them. After busting the second case, they went to a Mexican place for lunch, and after barely having enough time to finish their food they got a call from Kevin that there was another case. Between their first case and when Holtzmann finally got to go to bed, they had had 5 cases, each back-to-back with less than half an hour in between.

Erin reminded Holtzmann she still needed to eat before falling asleep, so they had dinner together. Holtzmann put on a pot of water and cooked some pasta, and they both waited.  
“Did you remember to turn on a timer?” Erin asked, and Jillian pointed a finger gun at her phone on the counter, which Erin took to mean yes. Since they still had to wait 6 minutes, Jillian went to the bathroom, and Erin whipped out her phone to check her social medias.

She was scrolling through Instagram when she heard a sound coming from Jillian’s phone. She picked it up to turn off the alarm, but when she looked at the screen she saw the timer wasn’t ready yet, Holtzmann had just been getting a lot of notifications. Erin’s eyes shot wide when she saw that the notifications were from Tumblr, because she thought she was the only one of them who had a Tumblr account.  
“Everything okay?” Holtzmann asked. Erin put down Holtzmann’s phone before turning around to face her, “Yeah, I thought the alarm was going off, but it was just some notifications spamming your phone.” When Holtzmann didn’t immediately reply, Erin found herself needing to continue, “I didn’t know you had a Tumblr account.”  
“Yeah… Its cool I guess.” she smirked, and Erin knew a pun was coming. “I guess you could say I fell for it. Fell, or maybe… Tumbled”.

Erin rolled her eyes, but she still couldn’t help crack a smile. The real alarm went off now, and they poured off the pasta and added some tomato sauce from a can. Erin took one spoonful of pasta and when she put it in her mouth she burned her tongue.  
“Watch out, the pasta’s hot” Erin warned.  
“Its okay I can handle it. After all I look at you all day right? I’ll be fine” Erin’s face turned the colour of the tomato sauce, and she blamed it on the heat of the pasta.

Once they had eaten, Erin called it a night, and Jillian said she wanted to finish off the plans that came to her in her dream.  
Erin went upstairs, and after brushing her teeth, she took a moment to look at herself in the mirror. She was still blushing. Erin wondered how she’d managed to fall so head over heels, and why all Jillian’s flirting wan’t going anywhere. She splashed some water on her face, and looked at her phone. She had some new notifications  
“Jillian-and-erin-should-totally-date liked your post”  
“Jillian-seriously-loves-erin reblogged your post”  
“Holtzmann-is-gilberts-soulmate started following you”  
“Erin-should-just-ask-Jillian-out-if-Jillian-doesnt-do-it-first liked your post”

Her notifications were right. She told herself to get her shit together, and just ask Jilly out. Erin thrust her phone back in her pocket, and started mentally playing an inspirational soundtrack, played by an orchestra and everything. She took a deep breath, and full of determination threw open the bathroom door. It slammed way harder than she had expected it to and made a really loud noise, and her soundtrack abruptly stopped. Abby came out to check that everything was okay, and was very worried when she saw how shaky Erin’s hands were. Erin dismissed Abby, and started building up her mental orchestra again. She walked down the stairs, and Abby quietly followed a few paces behind and out of sight, just to make sure she was really okay. With every step Erin's confidence doubled, and her insecurity tripled. Refusing to chicken out, she continued walking, running every possibility for the following conversation in her head. Jillian could say yes, which would be great, or she could say no, in which case Erin would run away and pretend it never happened. Erin stood right in front of Jillian, who was drawing out some blueprints.

“Jillian” Erin said, quieting down her soundtrack to just string instruments. Jillian looked up, and Erin pulled herself together and took her cue to continue. “Will you go out with me?”  
Jillian looked what could best be described as pleased. She made the largest closed-mouthed smile possible, and for the rest she moved nothing else. She made no motion to answer the brunette’s question. Erin stood speechless in front of her. Holtzmann looked as goofy as possible, but Erin felt like she was the silly one.  
Abby was now convinced that her friend was really okay, but she couldn’t turn away. She had seen her two friends fall for each other the first day they met, and she had expected they would have gotten together much sooner. If Holtzmann finally said yes, then Patty would owe Abby 20$.

Jillian had been quiet for so long that Erin thought perhaps this was a mistake; Erin had never felt this vulnerable and exposed before, and Jillian really meant a lot to her. The blonde maintained eye contact and reached into her pocket to take out her phone. She only broke eye contact to unlock her phone. She made a few taps here and there, and then Erin’s phone buzzed. She cursed the stupid thing for disrupting such an important moment. Erin was dying for an answer. Even hearing her say no would be better than this torment. Still grinning like a mad woman, Jillian nodded her head at what seemed like Erin’s pocket. Somehow she understood to check her phone. She had one new notification at the top of the screen:  
“jillianholtzmann-is-gay-for-eringilbert sent you a message: yes”

Erin’s mouth fell open, and speechless she started stuttering. “You… You knew? Wa-“ Jillian placed a small kiss on Erin’s lips, and then pulled back and waited. Erin turned bright red again, and covered it up by pressing her face against Jillian’s. They kissed each other deeply; the equivalent of weeks and weeks of mutual yearning pressed into one kiss, and Abby ran up the steps to go tell Patty she owed her 20$.


End file.
